Warning: Parameter 1 to wp_default_styles() expected to be a reference, value given in /homepages/16/d202020116/htdocs/worldwide/wp-includes/plugin.php on line 601

Warning: Parameter 1 to wp_default_scripts() expected to be a reference, value given in /homepages/16/d202020116/htdocs/worldwide/wp-includes/plugin.php on line 601Worldwide Ace » Conscious Imperatives – Part II

Conscious Imperatives – Part II

“Kiss her.” The instruction barely carries over the raucous music filling the bar.

“What?”

“I said kiss her.” Her eyes flash deviously at me, an eyebrow arching as she gives a quick glance at her friend.

“Here? Now?”

“Yes.” My heart beats faster than the pounding pulse of the mediocre punk music we came to hear.

“Ok,” I reply. The words are aimed more at myself than at my friend.

I turn toward the girl, reaching out gently with my left hand and carefully stroking her cheek. Her head tilts slightly, turning up toward me as I lean in. I can feel her breath stream across my face a moment before our lips meet.

The rhythm is both instantly comfortable and completely alien. Our sinuous flesh dances, pushing, pulling, twisting and twining. The noise of the bar, the dim lights, the music and city sounds all fade in an otherworldly explosion of endorphins. The voices screaming in my head are momentarily silent, as if straining to absorb the entirety of the act.

I can feel her lean toward me as I begin to pull away, my lips lingering for just a moment before the world rushes back in.

“There. Are you happy now?” I turn back to Dixie, trying to glare at her through the pounding elation. Her grin is her only answer, her attention quickly turning to Jodi.

“Not bad,” Jodi says, licking her lips and leaning back against the bar with a knowing smirk. “Not bad.”

I jump a bit as Dixie’s fist hits me in the shoulder. “See? Was that so bad?” she asks with a laugh.

The beer fills my mouth, pushing the words back into my head. I glance about the Three King’s Tavern, watching the hipsters and fans stylishly swaying with half-filled glasses clutched loosely before them. It’s busy, but not overflowing. The music is less than stellar, yet not offensive. Days later, I can’t remember the name of the act we trekked South to see, but I came as a friend, not for the band.

I continue to sip my drink, hoping it masks my nervousness. Jodi is an amazing young woman. She’s beautiful and curvaceous, her dyed blonde hair fitting the rockabilly style she sports. Her tattoos, including a conspicuous arm piece from Lilo & Stitch, are worn with a pride and confidence I can only describe as becoming. She is, both visually and in countenance, my opposite. I’m wowed by her, envious and dumbstruck. My whelming was over soon after our introduction earlier in the evening.

All of this does nothing to sway the mass of insecurities pounding through my head, instead sending me further into a spiral of inward examination. I count the months since the last time I slept with anyone, since the last date I went on, since my last kiss. They number in the double digits all around. I think of the incongruities between Jodi and me, the distance between her home South of Denver and mine in North Boulder. I think about the cultural division of taste, the concert which she wants to attend while I am there as random company for the evening and to eventually act as designated driver. I am the black kid at BYU, the nerd on the gridiron, the oil rubbing elbows at a water party. She, meanwhile, fits.

The forceful prodding from Dixie is perhaps the only reason why I’ve even taken the opportunity presented. Despite my attraction, I never would have spoken to Jodi without our mutual friend. I certainly never would have locked lips in a noisy bar to a soundtrack I couldn’t care less for. Dixie wouldn’t call it adventurous, but for me it certainly qualifies.

Entering college, I found that I could truthfully call myself experienced compared to many of the other students. Along the way, however, I began to lag. Others flirted, dated, slept around, and played while I studied, worked, relaxed, and socialized, my few forays into the dating world strange failures or brief asides from a life devoid. Thankfully, here tonight, my lack is self-evident only to me.

Jodi smiles at me every time she returns to my nervous perch at the bar. We chat. We laugh. I finish my second beer and quit, knowing an hour or two of water will be enough to let me reclaim my lost badge of responsibility. Dixie prods and pushes every time we’re alone, feeding me information on her friend. She alternately warns me to treat her respectfully, that she deserves a nice guy, and tells me to be aggressive, that I can’t be too nice.

After the band stops, the girls finish their drinks and we leave. I get Jodi’s number as we drive out of our way and drop her home, promising to call in a few days. Dixie and I drive North in the darkness, her slightly slurred speech eliciting brief snippets of conversation in between endless stretches of introspection. It’s an innocuous end to the evening.

A week later, after recovering from a nasty cold, I call Jodi. She vaguely remembers me, vaguely remembers the night. “Your Dixie’s nice guy friend! Sure, I remember you.” It’s a less than inspiring response. Between my apologies for taking so long to get back to her, for getting sick, for not striking while the iron is still plugged in, I get the sense that nothing will come of this.

We don’t make plans, the moment lost beneath a haze of alcohol, noise, two lives lived differently. I hang up, wondering how everything can be so fluid, so elastic. Within a week, we are but memories.